For These Players, All the Train’s a Stage

Paul Marino as MacDuff in the fifth act of “Macbeth,” after the titular Scot is beheaded.

Shakespeare in the Park doesn’t start until June, but fans of the bard have another option for free performances until then: Shakespeare on the subway.

Taking literally the Elizabethan playwright’s adage that “all the world’s a stage,” Brooklyn-based actors Paul Marino, 29 years old, and Fred Jones, 26, have been staging selections from Shakespeare’s works in subway trains rumbling beneath city streets.

“Shakespeare is something people recognize,” said Jones. “They may think we’re crazy at the start of a performance, but then they recognize it and are comfortable with it.”

For 20 hours each week the pair — who also work variously as bartenders, waiters, personal chefs, tutors and plumbers — perform scenes from “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet” and “Julius Caesar.” All their selections from the tragedies come from either Act 3, where the action typically rises, or Act 5, where everyone dies. (Passengers simply aren’t interested in exposition, they say.)

After the jump, see a video of these subway Shakespeareans performing.